Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/291

Rh Work in the Philippines,' by Mr. Elmer D. Merrill, gives an interesting account of the history of botany in the islands. Prior to the advent of the Americans, various travelers had made collections in the islands, and a certain amount of work had been accomplished by the priests; but the apathy of the Spanish government is in remarkable contrast to the present activity. The priests in the early centuries were chiefly interested in collecting medicinal plants, but Manuel Blanco published a flora of the Philippines extending to 887 pages in 1837, and a revised edition by Fernandez-Villar was published in Manila between 1877 and 1883. Blanco's original work is said to be very faulty, so that De Candolle regretted that he had not confined himself 10 writing sermons, and the later revision, prepared without reference to existing types or authentic botanical material, will retard rather than advance the science of botany.

In 1873 Domingo Vidal went to the islands and became director of the Botanical Garden, and after his death in 1878 he was succeeded by his brother Sebastian Vidal. The latter, who died in 1889 at the age of forty-seven years, appears to have been the ablest of Spanish botanists who have worked on the Philippine flora. He was greatly respected, both as a botanist and as a man, and a life-size statue, which is here reproduced, was erected by his friends in the center of the Botanical Garden.

The garden is said to have an unsatisfactory situation, being only a few feet above the level of the sea, with no